In association with the International Commission of Jurists

The ICC’s Retroactive Jurisdiction, Revisited

29 Jan

[Alexander Wills is an LLM student at Leiden University] Kevin’s earlier posts (here, here and here), and the robust discussion they provoked, centred on two key questions: Can Article 12(3) declarations can have effect retroactively; and Can State Parties lodge declarations under Article 12(3)? I don’t propose to repeat the points Kevin made earlier, but to briefly provide some additional material suggesting an affirmative...

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29 Jan

[Başak Çalı is Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Human Rights at the University College London] This post is the third in a series of three. In my previous post, I reviewed the Von Hannover (2) and Fatullayev cases to illustrate my argument that the standard of judicial review used by the European Court of Human Rights is variable. Notably, the Strasbourg Court chooses to employ a...

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29 Jan

Michael Lewis claims, in his very interesting post, that "it is fair to say that if Israel’s action in the 1967 war was justified by Article 51 (something that most states, if not most scholars, seem to agree with), then Article 51 'imminence' is broader than Caroline 'imminence'." I don't have time today to address that claim in any detail, but I...

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28 Jan

McClatchy reports that Israel now believes Iran will not be able to produce a nuclear weapon until 2015 or 2016.  That is progress of a sort; Netanyahu had previously been claiming that Iran would have the bomb no later than late summer 2013 -- around six months from now.  But Israel is still insisting that Iran is only two or...

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27 Jan

Calls for Papers The International Law Discussion Group of the University of Edinburgh is launching a call for papers for its biennial spring Doctoral Symposium to take place on June 17-18, 2013 on Regime Interactions. Abstracts are due by March 1, 2013. More information can be found here. The quarterly journal, Transnational Legal Theory, is soliciting submissions for a Symposium on William Twining's Montesquieu Lecture...

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23 Jan

Pathetic: Ambassador Susan Rice objected Wednesday to the Palestinians' latest bid to capitalize on their upgraded UN status when their foreign minister spoke at Security Council while seated behind a nameplate that read "State of Palestine." It was the first Palestinian address to the Security Council since the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly on November 29 to upgrade the Palestinians from UN...

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23 Jan

[John B. Bellinger III is a partner in the international and national security law practices at Arnold & Porter LLP in Washington, DC and an adjunct senior fellow in international and national security law at the Council on Foreign Relations. He served as The Legal Adviser for the Department of State from 2005–2009.] Julian invited me to respond to his post...

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23 Jan

China's initial reaction to the Philippines' decision yesterday to file an arbitration claim has been to stick to its guns.  From the BBC: On Wednesday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei told journalists that China has "indisputable sovereignty over the South China Sea islands and adjacent waters, which has abundant historical and legal grounds". "The key and root of the dispute over...

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22 Jan

The indefatigable Glenn Greenwald has unearthed an even more appalling appropriation of Dr. King by the military -- a Department of Defense news article entitled "King Might Understand Today's Wars, Pentagon Lawyer Says."  The lawyer in question is none other than Jeh Johnson, former DoD General Counsel.  Here is what he says: In the final year of his life, King became...

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22 Jan

I am very rarely rendered speechless, but this appropriation of Martin Luther King by the Air Force Global Strike Command Programming Division (nearly) did the trick: The Department of Defense is a leader in equal opportunity for all patriots seeking to serve this great nation. . . The vigilant warriors in AFGSC understand they are all equal and unified in purpose to...

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